For the next update? Or, if you wanted a new Apple watch, would you buy the series 7 now?

From what I’ve read:

Temperature sensing - likely
Blood sugar - unlikely
Rugged - likely
Extended battery - ?
Blood pressure - ?


I’d certainly consider the S7, especially if it was on sale.

Howard2k said:

From what I’ve read:

Temperature sensing - likely
Blood sugar - unlikely
Rugged - likely
Extended battery - ?
Blood pressure - ?


I’d certainly consider the S7, especially if it was in sale.

Click to expand...

Sale? Do Apple do sales? Or do you mean other outlets?

I would love the blood sugar sensor as I am pre-diabetic and my doctor keeps hounding me for glucose & A1C tests every 6 months.

Because my doctor is pushing me to stay healthy, I just signed up for a fitness app credit card called Paceline that pays for an AW7 (GPS):

Janeilfen said:

Sale? Do Apple do sales? Or do you mean other outlets?

I meant "on sale" = discounted. Sorry - typo.

Howard2k said:

I meant "on sale" = discounted. Sorry - typo.

That's what I thought you meant. Do Apple discount anything?

Janeilfen said:

That's what I thought you meant. Do Apple discount anything?

Sometimes, but it seems it's more often the big box retailers. I'm not sure what country you're in but Amazon, Staples, Best Buy etc. Even Walmart sometimes.

Howard2k said:

Sometimes, but it seems it's more often the big box retailers. I'm not sure what country you're in but Amazon, Staples, Best Buy etc. Even Walmart sometimes.

I'm in "rip off" Britain. Don't think I've seen a current Apple product discounted anywhere here but I could be wrong.

Janeilfen said:

I'm in "rip off" Britain. Don't think I've seen a current Apple product discounted anywhere here but I could be wrong.

Canada isn't much better. The yanks get the great deals. 😂

Howard2k said:

Canada isn't much better. The yanks get the great deals. 😂

I’ll trade those deals to get the Brits’ Philips Hue catalogue lol.

Janeilfen said:

For the next update? Or, if you wanted a new Apple watch, would you buy the series 7 now?

My wife and I just bought new Series 7s last month to replace our S4s. I like the SpO2 sensor along with the always on display. For new sensors blood sugar would be nice along with temperature.

Howard2k said:

Canada isn't much better. The yanks get the great deals. 😂

Well our dollar doesn't go very far, but you can find some AW7 deals. But most involve jumping through hoops and buying on sale gift certificates or point rewards.
As well, occasionally Staples will have a sale and some coupons you can apply to it.

Janeilfen said:

I'm in "rip off" Britain. Don't think I've seen a current Apple product discounted anywhere here but I could be wrong.

Might be worth having a look at CostCo - they have S7 at about £15 less than most retailers. (And my 14" MacBook Pro was less expensive there than anywhere else I could find. That was in December 2021.)

https://www.costco.co.uk

4sallypat said:

I would love the blood sugar sensor as I am pre-diabetic and my doctor keeps hounding me for glucose & A1C tests every 6 months.

I don't believe in a reliable blood sugar sensor on a smartwatch. There was a lot of speculation about Apple Watch to measure blood glucose. In 2013 Apple even hired some engineers and directors from C8 MediSensors (company that was developing a non-invasive glucose monitor). But almost 10 years later, Apple still doesn't have such a technology.
I'd recommend you to read this article to better understand the problem and the way to solve it.

Bring back space grey and silver.

I hope midnight and to a lesser extent starlight, are not the standard colours moving forward.
But I suspect they will.

satchmo said:

Bring back space grey and silver.

I hope midnight and to a lesser extent starlight, are not the standard colours moving forward.
But I suspect they will.

For sure. Midnight and Starlight are not my thing at all. Keep them around for those that like those colours but hopefully we get more sensible colours again for S8.

I think we could see skin temperature sensor, rugged version with more shockproof material casing, new/additional LTE bands for cellular, maybe increased power efficiency for the heart rate sensor to take more frequent readings throughout the day and night.

I just don’t think there’s much Apple can add right now in terms of health sensors. Most of the tech isn’t even close to prime time in my guess. I also am inclined to believe that better power save mode, as rumored with WatchOS 9, is possible. I think that’s about the only way they can get much more battery life out of the device for now. I don’t see multi-day battery life being advertised anytime soon. I sure wish it would happen though!

PaladinGuy said:

I think we could see skin temperature sensor

It's a rather useless sensor. So I don't think we will ever see it on the Apple Watch, because Apple doesn't make a feature just to have more features (like Samsung and Chinese manufacturers like to do). I have a skin temperature sensor on my Huawei Watch, but neither me nor Huawei knows its purpose. In fact, it shows nothing (skin temperature vary a lot and doesn't indicate anything) and there is no feature that uses it (e.g., to assist sleep tracking, etc.).

Oleksi said:

It's a rather useless sensor. So I don't think we will ever see it on the Apple Watch, because Apple doesn't make a feature just to have more features (like Samsung and Chinese manufacturers like to do). I have a skin temperature sensor on my Huawei Watch, but neither me nor Huawei knows its purpose. In fact, it shows nothing (skin temperature vary a lot and doesn't indicate anything) and there is no feature that uses it (e.g., to assist sleep tracking, etc.).

It can be useful, but it has to be tied in to other metrics. As a stand-alone metric, it’s not that helpful.

PaladinGuy said:

It can be useful, but it has to be tied in to other metrics.

Can you give an example? I'm afraid there is no metrics that can be tied in to skin temperature. It's really useless data except for maybe notification that you are dead (or pretty close to death by hypothermia).

Skin temperature vary due to a lot of exogenous factors (you change your clothes, or go outside, or the air temperature is changed and your skin temperature changes too). You just put your hand next to a warm object and skin temperature immediately changes. What can it tell you about?

I see only one reason for this sensor. And that is marketing.

I also wouldn't mind seeing something similar to Garmin's body battery feature.

It takes your heart rate variability, activity levels, stress levels, and sleep data and combine to estimate your body battery for the day.

Oleksi said:

Can you give an example? I'm afraid there is no metrics that can be tied in to skin temperature. It's really useless data except for maybe notification that you are dead (or pretty close to death by hypothermia).

Skin temperature vary due to a lot of exogenous factors (you change your clothes, or go outside, or the air temperature is changed and your skin temperature changes too). You just put your hand next to a warm object and skin temperature immediately changes. What can it tell you about?

I see only one reason for this sensor. And that is marketing.

Click to expand...

Yes. During the day, it’s not useful. At night, it can indicate onset of sickness and be used for recovery/training purposes. It can also help you plan for better sleep. If your temperature is higher at night, it’s likely that your sleep quality isn’t great.

I’ll grant you that it’s not the most useful metric, but it can show some things. It’s greatest use is probably for female cycle tracking.

I’m with you, something like body battery would be excellent. One of my biggest knocks on the Apple Watch is that the activity functions don’t take recovery into consideration at all.

Howard2k said:

For sure. Midnight and Starlight are not my thing at all. Keep them around for those that like those colours but hopefully we get more sensible colours again for S8.

The crazy thing is that I was all set to get a S7 when Apple announced the larger 41mm size and edge-to-edge display. Then I had I look at the colours.

Unfortunately, I'd have to go back to S6 and earlier to get space grey, but would lose out on the new aforementioned features. Or drop big $ on a stainless steel model.

So it's led me to wait for the S8. But between now and Sept 2022, I'm tempted to try Garmin.

satchmo said:

The crazy thing is that I was all set to get a S7 when Apple announced the larger 41mm size and edge-to-edge display. Then I had I look at the colours.

Unfortunately, I'd have to go back to S6 and earlier to get space grey, but would lose out on the new aforementioned features. Or drop big $ on a stainless steel model.

So it's led me to wait for the S8. But between now and Sept 2022, I'm tempted to try Garmin.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I bought the SE early last year as I wasn’t sure the AW was for me. After using the SE I decided that it was indeed for me and that the S7 would be a great next step. But then the colours.

Each to their own but I’d like something neutral - and a black would be perfect.

I kinda like the green to be honest but it’s just not flexible enough IMO.

I had considered going titanium but doing that for colour alone is not something I’m ok with and after doing the math, I’m leaning away from it.

I doubt I’ll get the S8 if it’s still such a limited colour palette.

Howard2k said:

Agreed. I bought the SE early last year as I wasn’t sure the AW was for me. After using the SE I decided that it was indeed for me and that the S7 would be a great next step. But then the colours.

Each to their own but I’d like something neutral - and a black would be perfect.

I kinda like the green to be honest but it’s just not flexible enough IMO.

I had considered going titanium but doing that for colour alone is not something I’m ok with and after doing the math, I’m leaning away from it.

I doubt I’ll get the S8 if it’s still such a limited colour palette.

Click to expand...

That’s funny. I considered the green one as well but saw the limited strap pairing.

I did give an SE a try last year, but returned it because I decided I wanted O2. I could see Apple possibly upgrading this year’s SE to include that feature and maybe keep space grey option too. 😃